Leadership

Amotz Shemi, PhD

CEO

Dr. Shemi is Silenseed’s co-founder and has served as the company’s Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer since incorporation in 2008. Prior to founding Silenseed, from 2005 to 2008, Dr. Shemi served as the Senior Vice President Technologies at Medinol Ltd., a world leader in design, development and manufacturing of stent and stent delivery systems. Prior to that time, Dr. Shemi was the chief executive officer of several private Israeli technology companies, including Color-Chip Ltd (acquired by Sanan Optoelectronics Co. Ltd. for $300mm). Dr. Shemi holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Tel Aviv University. He is a single author and co-author of many scientific papers and a single inventor and co-inventor of more than a dozen of patents.

Orit Pollack – Shragai M.Sc, MBA

VP Clinical Operations

Orit joined Silenseed in 2019 bringing over two decades of experience in the biomedical field, both in academia and industry. Prior to joining Silenseed, Mrs. Pollack Shragai served as Director of Clinical Operations and Active Advisor to several pharmaceutical companies. Orit has a wide experience as CRA, Project Manager, Clinical Research Manager including management of international clinical trials including of MSD, at a leading CRO. Orit holds a B.Sc in Food Engineering and Biotechnology from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, M.Sc in Biotechnology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and MBA from the College of Management Academic Studies.

Ettie Pirak, PhD

Director, Drug Development

Dr. Ettie Pirak, Ph.D. is a co-inventor and developer of the chimeric monoclonal antibody drug Cetuximab (Erbitux(R)); Dr Pirak serves as the Vice President of Technologies at Meytav Technological Incubator. Dr. Pirak founded Innovo Biotechnologies in 1998. She also serves as Senior Advisor at Vacciguard and Alon Therapeutics. She was also a Director of Research Collaboration at Compugen. Dr. Pirak serves as a Director of Quinova Rx Ltd., Angio B Ltd., Novotyr therapeutics and Protea. She serves as Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Allosterix Ltd. Dr. Pirak serves as a Director of Thera-P Ltd. Dr. Pirak was a Scientist at Weizmann Institute in the Chemical Immunology Department. She served as a Director of Collplant Holdings Ltd. Dr. Pirak worked for eight years as a Researcher at the Department of Chemical Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Pirak holds a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Louvain la Neuve, Belgium.

Asher Shamir, CPA

VP Finance

Mr. Shamir served in Silenseed as Finance Manager since 2017 and promoted in 9/2018 to Vice President Finance, bringing with him a decade of management experience in finance. Prior to joining Silenseed, Mr. Shamir served as a finance director at Macrocure Ltd. (NASDAQ:MCUR), where he played an integral role in the company’s NASDAQ Initial Public Offering process, and leading the financial aspects of two Phase 3 clinical trials held in the US and Israel (400 patients in total). Before joining Macrocure, Mr. Shamir was a senior associate at Ernst & Young (EY) in Tel Aviv (Biotech and High-Tec segment). Mr. Shamir is a licensed Israeli CPA and holds a Bachelor degree in Accounting from the Hebrew University at Jerusalem and a Master degree at Law from Bar Ilan University.

Yafit Stark, PhD

Global Clinical Development Strategy

Dr. Stark is an Active Advisor to Silenseed on Global Clinical Development Strategy. Dr Stark joined Teva (NYSE: TEVA) in 1987 and from 1991 to 1994 was relocated to the US, where she established the Innovative R&D Division of Teva USA. From 1994 to 2018 Yafit established and managed the Innovative R&D Division’s Global Clinical Research Department and was responsible for the clinical development program of Teva’s innovative products, Copaxone® for Multiple Sclerosis, Azilect for Parkinson’s Disease and other Teva medicinal products. In the framework for innovative clinical development, Yafit also established in TEVA the fields of Oncology, CNS, Biosimilars and was involved with Clinical Development Strategy and implementation of new methodologies in both innovative and generic product development (Under 505 (b)(2) regulatory route). She is a director of several associations as well as Israeli Biotechnology companies. Yafit Stark holds a PhD in Pathology from Tel Aviv University (TAU), and a Post-Doctorate in Immuno-Histopathology in the Weizmann Institute of Science. In TAU she served as a member of the academic staff of the Sackler School of Medicine and continues to lecture on Pathology and Oncology Drug Development in the School of Medicine’s College for Advanced Degrees.